


The Inside Man

by DinoDina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Corrupt Politicians, Established Relationship, M/M, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinoDina/pseuds/DinoDina
Summary: Oliver Wood, Private Invstigator, takes on a new case with the help of his partner, Percy Weasley: taking down a corrupt politician.Also, Percy and Oliver are dating. But that's a background thing, because evil politicians take the stage.
Relationships: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	The Inside Man

The building was nondescript almost to the point of being run-down if one missed the clear signs of love around it: the carefully-cleaned windows, the flowerpots leaning down onto the street from sparse balconies, the welcoming quiet of the neighborhood. It was not the quiet of a place terrorized by the usual suspects—the mob, most of the time, but politicians' fingers stretched deep into the city's poorer areas, and no one could be quite sure anymore—but the quiet of a place that was kept safe by its own enforcers.

Their offices were on the bottom floor of the building, a small rented place with a well-worn welcome mat at the foot of the door and the heading "Private Investigator" above it. Inside was a modest waiting room, simple leather-covered benches standing beside wooden tables holding up vases of flowers and stacks of magazines. A door at the rear of the room led into the offices themselves; an unobtrusive secretary periodically escorted clients inside.

The office was bathed in a peculiar mix of soft orange light from the back windows and fluorescence from the cheap overhead bulbs. At a desk in front of the windows sat a brown-haired man.

This was Oliver Wood.

He greeted each client with quiet enthusiasm and encouragement not expected of such a burly man, though if he stood, one would see that he was more stocky than burly, almost a full head shorter than his secretary, who moved to his left side as the meeting commenced.

Oliver only stood when the meeting ended, for clients were often shams sent by rival investigators or belligerent gangs, and then decided their legitimacy, as goons grew confident by the end of the meeting and were then easy to catch off-guard.

When that happened, the secretary smiled down at the defeated almost-enemy, ran a well-hidden appreciative gaze over Oliver, and made note in a journal, keeping score.

But when the client was legitimate, a victim of crime or deceit, of the maliciously powerful men that confidently walked in broad daylight when they were in fact lower than the roaches that made home beneath the city's streets, then Oliver's body language opened in a show of trust as he traversed the desk, and he shook the client's hand and promised them success.

In the now-locked office, Oliver asked the secretary if there were any more clients waiting. There usually weren't, the news was reported as such, and the two sat once more.

From the outside, the window looking into the office was easy to get to, but the glass was thick and mirrored, so it didn't matter that Oliver's back was to it.

The same deceptive vulnerability characterized his ever-present secretary, a man who, if one desired a closer look, carried as many concealed weapons as Oliver himself. This was Percy Weasley, who had graduated at the top of his and Oliver's class, taken a detour into politics, and eventually ended up in the investigative office. He took as much pride in keeping the files organized as he did in his sharpshooting, but no one paid attention to the secretary, except to notice the brightness of his red hair before focusing on the broad muscle attached to Oliver.

The physique hid a man whose true love had been sport but who had been more devoted to his teammates. Alone in the office, he smiled freely and moved unburdened by the weight of being reassuring and imposing at the same time. He took charity cases with the same ease that he'd held when he'd first stepped foot in the neighborhood, looked around, and said to Percy, "This is ours. We're protecting them."

So the neighborhood was under their wide, caring wing, which created tight funds, and Percy took over secretarial duties in tandem with his role as partner within the agency.

"Bartemius Crouch, Sr." Their newest mark.

Oliver's lip curled upward disdainfully. "Politician."

"A straight man through-and-through. He signed his own son's conviction several years ago. The boy died in prison, and Crouch stayed in power despite the character blemish."

"He sent his own son to his death in the name of the law, and yet—" Oliver's mouth twisted into something dangerous "—he's been stealing his employees' work for years."

"Most men do. Young, eager clerks come in, just waiting to make a name for themselves. When Crouch sees their good work… He gets accolades and a pay raise, they lose hours, months, maybe years of work. And with their greatest achievement gone, they stay under Crouch forever."

Oliver nodded to himself and ran a pensive look over Percy. "What say you to giving Crouch one final victim?"

* * *

Dawn rose over the tall government building lacking the warmth it did elsewhere in the city. Near-brutalist, it was grey and imposing, unwelcoming not only in its façade but deep in its foundation. Its windows looked down onto the street with the apathy of a judge reading a sentence.

The man lurking outside, however, paid little attention to the windows, which he knew were a show of riches rather than functional features.

He had been there since well before dawn but showed no fatigue. He was a bright-eyed young new hire, having been a drifter for several years after finishing university with honors, intelligent but unable to get further in life without connections. The biography given to the offices inside the building was fictitious, but it fit him as well as the well-pressed suit and the modest grey hat that covered a shock of red curls.

Paul Worthing—for that was the name this man entered the building with—walked at an unassuming pace, flashed bland smiles at those he passed, and expertly found his way to the offices of Bartemius Crouch, Sr., no matter that it was only his first day.

The light coming into the offices was cold and harsh, not at all the welcoming sun that shone into the investigative office. It was the same sun, of course, and the same city, and likely even the same window manufacturers that created a border between the outside and the cluttered clerks' desks. A single door separated them from Crouch himself, whose corner office was always locked.

As the newest hire, Worthing's desk was crammed between a wall and a trash bin that no one used. Already, it towered with reports that threatened to tip over the small cup of pens at the edge. There was too little room to comfortably sit and as his knees buckled into the bottom of the table, his feet trod over the briefcase he had been forced to shove under the rickety chair.

It was far from the perfect beginning to an illustrious career in politics, but it was the usual one. All around, young workers were bent over their desks in the cheap lighting, frantically working on their own projects, hoping to get noticed and promoted. That would not happen; any outstanding work went directly onto Crouch's desk, where it was rewritten in his handwriting and passed off as his own further up the ladder.

Worthing got to work after a cursory glance around and appeared as focused as the people around him. He took a short break around lunchtime and returned to his desk with a cup of tea, projecting the image of a hopeful, naïve man, and was thus not suspicious in the slightest, if one ignored the fact that he was actually Percy Weasley, entering Crouch's office under an assumed name to find evidence of his crimes.

Percy spent most of his time at the office, coming in the middle of the night to see the hidden features of the building—searching for the safe that must house proof of Crouch's crimes—and leaving late after making a small show of eagerness to please. Sooner or later, Paul Worthing would appear in Crouch's sight and would be too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

Percy didn't see Crouch himself for another two weeks. In that time, however, he noticed the paperwork missing from his desk and the distant rumors of the praise Crouch was getting for new initiatives and ideas.

The rumors flew from the large, airy lobby on the first floor to the clean, polished corridors separating departments, to the small kitchen Percy used during his breaks to make tea.

In a dark corner of the department, the kitchen was so small that the door did not close when it was occupied. There were no tables or chairs to sit at—for that would discourage productivity—and the small refrigerator under the grey countertop was remarkable only because no clerk made enough money to have one of their own. On top of the counter was a small kettle, brought in years ago and generally forgotten about, for the cabinets held no cups on the principle that cups encouraged socialization, which encouraged friendship, which discouraged the competitive spirit that bred ingenuity.

Clerks, however, underneath their tired eyes and hunched backs, were people, and a gaggle of them huddled near the kitchen when Percy, on the first day of his third week in the office, carried over a mug to make tea. It was a gift from Oliver and was now stained and worn with use, the decorative paint on its sides chipping and betraying its cost, but making it no less dear.

He stood apart from the others as he waited for his drink, sparing a thought for Oliver and the small flat they shared above their office, and listening to the rumors flying several paces away.

"Whose work was it this time?" whispered a man younger than Percy.

"Not mine."

"Nor mine."

"Someone new, then," said a woman that sat several desks away from him.

Percy felt their eyes on him.

"Poor bastard. We can't even report Crouch. If he was _only_ stealing our work—"

"Shh!"

The brisk click of expensive leather over stone preceded the looming shadow of a man who, in reality, was shorter than Percy. His suit was of far better quality, however, pinstriped so finely it was almost a solid color, and his dark hair was slicked back and greying at the temples. His face was familiar to Percy only because he had studied the file he and Oliver had compiled before he'd gone inside: this was Bartemius Crouch. Percy resisted a flinch at the near-evil shrewdness of his eyes.

He heard the clerks scurry away, their scuffed shoes soft on the floor where Crouch's were sharp, and he cursed Crouch for approaching before he'd gotten to hear the end. _If he was_ only _stealing_ —it was the "only" that piqued Percy's interest.

But if Crouch insisted on being contrary and scaring away possible informants, then Percy would be just as difficult.

He nodded politely at Crouch, then resumed his focus on the tea.

"You're new here."

"Yes, Sir." Percy kept his head down. "Started two weeks ago."

"You've done good work, Weatherby—"

"Worthing, Sir."

"—I'd like you to continue doing it."

"I'm on break, Sir."

A red flush darted over Crouch's cheeks, but he took a quick breath and the color vanished. He raised his head, now adopting a stance that would have been intimidating if Percy was a real employee, and repeated himself.

"I'm waiting on my tea, Sir."

"I'd like to give you a few more projects, Weatherby—"

"Worthing, Sir."

"—over the weekend, you understand, everyone must pull their weight around here."

"I don't know if I told you this," Percy raised himself to a fuller height, not yet confrontational but enough to show Crouch he was more than he seemed, "but I'm trying to make a cup of tea."

The flush that rose in Crouch's cheeks stayed longer this time. Before his face returned to its usual impassiveness, it flashed with a new anger, pale, cool, and collected, promising a lengthy punishment rather than a quick revenge.

"My office, Worthing. _Now_."

The walk to Crouch's locked office should have seemed like an eternity, a cruel final parade amongst the free before the inevitable shutting of a prison door or the terrifying construction of a scaffold.

But Percy knew Crouch. He had met him hundreds of times in his past political career, had risked becoming him years down the line if he'd continued at it. The expensive clothes, dismissive manner, and intimidating words were nothing but hot air. At the end of the day, Paul Worthing wouldn't be fired until he stopped being useful. Percy had worked hard over the past two weeks to make him indispensable—he'd done the years before, when he had tried to make a name for Percy Weasley.

The nighttime reconnaissance had left Percy with a single answer as to the location of Crouch's safe, and his trained eye would catch any architectural discrepancy that would give it away. He just needed to get inside Crouch's office and insubordination opened the door where his lockpicks had failed.

Now there, the sleek opulence made Percy's secondhand suit seem shabbier than usual and made Crouch's blustering confidence a natural consequence of the high-brow life he'd always led. It added an extra layer of derision to the dressing-down that rained on Percy's unprotected ears, but it couldn't protect Crouch's pocket from Percy's nimble fingers and couldn't guard the keyring he slipped the spare key from.

* * *

In the orange light of the streetlamps shining through the window, Crouch's office was far less imposing than during the day.

"Creepy," whispered one of the two men that entered it.

The other slapped his shoulder and made a shushing noise. Percy was always more careful than Oliver when they had to break in somewhere, and as Oliver creeped towards the safe at the back of the office, he pressed himself to the door and listened for any other intruders.

Oliver, in the dark, pressed his ear to the wall of the safe and started turning the tumblers. His experience with safecracking began in school, when members of the rugby team had changed his lock combination in the dressing room. It had been honed through years of semi-legal detective work, but it was slow going and at times, his heart beat louder than the tumblers fell.

The agonizing minutes inched past, each slower than the last, for Oliver was still just an amateur safecracker, and when at last the safe opened, he let out an unprofessional whoop before gesturing Percy over. The light from the window faintly outlined Oliver's arm and caught on the silver edge of the safe door.

"Got it?" Percy hissed without leaving his post at the door.

Oliver nodded. Several manila folders lay before him, filled with the work Crouch had been getting credit for: official reports, torn notebook pages crammed with the fast handwriting of young, inspired workers, smudged ink and years of research that had never seen the light of day.

Oliver's hand shuffled deeper into the safe, past more folders, peeled away the false velvet wall, and took out notebooks; further in, and found soft and even stacks of paper.

"Perce." The orange glow caught on his chiseled face. "You said the clerks think there's more going on? There is. Where's this cash from?"

Percy took a step from the door into the darkness at the same time as a familiar brisk step sounded from the corridor outside. The steps sharply approached and were echoed by a heavier tread of equally expensive shoes.

Fumbling but trying to be silent, not sure if he was succeeding over the rush of blood in his ears, Oliver returned the money to the safe and pushed the false wall back into place. No evidence would leave the building if he and Percy were unable to carry it out.

That seemed like the likely outcome, however, for the footsteps approached and Oliver pushed the safe shut just as the door opened.

Two sets of legs moved from the door to the desk; masked by their sound, Oliver and Percy crept on hands and knees in the opposite direction.

"I don't understand why you insist on doing this in the dark, Crouch."

It was a deep, rich voice, belonging to a man that left his bed in the middle of the night to finish the illicit affairs he began in the daytime.

"You're bribing me, so you're hardly the one in control here."

Once, Crouch had been fresh-faced and eager to make his mark on the world. His ambition had won out over his principles in the end, as it often did, claiming his son's life in the process. As he was loyal to someone once he was bribed, Crouch's career was assured no matter the corruption it festered with.

Percy, in the shadows near the door, smiled: he recognized himself in Crouch and had thus grabbed from the safe a chance rather than solid evidence.

He grabbed Oliver's sleeve and darted through the door away from the menacing office half-lit by the moon and the violently orange streetlamps. Behind them, a commotion sounded, Crouch and his companion rushing around in the dark and out into the now-empty corridor, shooting at it in vain, not knowing that Percy had dragged them out through the back exit.

Oliver caught his breath and leaned back against the building with a thump. "I only grabbed one folder. That's nowhere near enough to bring down someone like Crouch."

"That'll only be a footnote on the scandal we'll bring to the papers." Percy lifted one of the notebooks he'd carried out, black, leather-bound, and utterly unremarkable if not for what he imagined to be inside. "Bribery? That's a goldmine with someone like Crouch. His records of the payments are in here, I know it."

And because Percy was exceptionally bright—a fact that he was almost as proud of as his investigative prowess—he was also correct.

* * *

The evening newspaper that fell onto the welcome mat outside the investigative office bore a celebratory headline of Crouch's resignation amidst a juicy scandal that would be found on the second page.


End file.
